Now, they enter the NCAA tournament as the overall No 1 seed. A familiar position for this squad, which was ranked No. 2 to start the season and was the preseason favorite to win the Big East.

Last year Louisville got hot during a surprising run in the Big East tournament and continued rolling to the Final Four.

Midwest Region

Coach Rick Pitino's Cardinals (29-5) will potentially face a 20-loss team and then possibly have a rematch of an early-season game they easily won.

MEAC tournament winner North Carolina A&T (19-16) and Big South tournament champion Liberty (15-20) play Tuesday night in Dayton, Ohio. The winner goes to Lexington, Ky., to play Louisville on Thursday.

Colorado State (25-8), the eighth seed with an at-large berth out of the Mountain West, plays SEC newcomer Missouri (23-10). The Tigers lost 84-61 to Louisville in the Bahamas at the start of the season.

Duke (27-5) is the Midwest's No. 2 seed.

East Region

Indiana stands alone as the No. 1 seed. But the Hoosiers have plenty of former NCAA championship company in the East Region.

UNLV, Syracuse, California and Marquette are all former national champions. So is North Carolina State, in the region as a No. 8 seed on the 30th anniversary of one of the greatest championship game upsets. The Wolfpack won national titles in 1974 with David Thompson, and in 1983 on Lorenzo Charles' dramatic last-second putback of Dereck Whittenburg's wild shot, leading to coach Jim Valvano's memorable celebration.

Temple, Colorado and Illinois have all played in regional finals.

Cal, the 1959 national champs, are the No. 12 seed and play fifth-seeded UNLV. They played once already this season, a 76-75 UNLV win on Dec. 9.

South Region

No. 1 seed Kansas will face No. 16 seed Western Kentucky on Friday in a South Regional first-round matchup between two teams with plenty of NCAA tournament experience.

Kansas (29-5) received a No. 1 seed after earning a share of the Big 12 regular-season title and defeating Kansas State 70-54 in the Big 12 tournament championship game. Last year's NCAA tournament runner-up has won both the Big 12 regular-season and tournament championships three of the last four seasons.

Western Kentucky (20-15) is making its 23rd overall NCAA tournament appearance and fourth in the last six years. The Hiltoppers were only one game above .500 at the end of the regular season, but they won four games in four days as the No. 6 seed in the Sun Belt tournament.

West Region

Gonzaga finished the regular season at No.1 and will head into the postseason the same way.

After a perfect run through the West Coast Conference regular season and tournament, the Zags received the top seed in the West Region of the NCAA tournament.

Gonzaga, which went 26-2, opens the tournament against No. 16 seed Southern University in Salt Lake City on Thursday.

Get past the Jaguars and the Zags will face a difficult road in a bracket that includes second-seeded Ohio State, Kansas State, New Mexico and Arizona.

One of the more intriguing second round games of the NCAA tournament will take place in West: dynamic Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson against the grinding style of Wisconsin in Kansas City on Friday.

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